


my dark necessities are part of my design

by iopeneditbeforechristmas



Series: stardust [1]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Angst, F/M, despite all better judgement, eventually anyway, i take extreme liberties with star wars canon and timelines, seriously i deleted the fluff tag cos that's not what this fic is about, the extremely angsty cassian andor origin story we all wanted, the whole gangs here basically, unfortunately canon-compliant
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-03
Updated: 2017-01-10
Packaged: 2018-09-14 14:27:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9186308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iopeneditbeforechristmas/pseuds/iopeneditbeforechristmas
Summary: Cassian Andor lies on a beach that should be paradise and breathes in everything he can of the woman beside him. Light burns his eyes, his skin, his soul, nebulas forming and breaking in the corner of his vision, but all he can think of is Jyn. She's so strong, stronger than he's ever been able to manage, and there's no one he would rather have by his side in death. No one more suitable to help him save the galaxy.If they manage to do that, Cassian thinks, his will have been a life well-lived.





	1. a hero's farewell

**Author's Note:**

> the line 'some of us have been in this fight since we were six years old' really struck me, as I'm sure it did everyone else who saw rogue one, but I was so incredibly disappointed with how the ancillary material tries to lighten the emotional impact of something like that. so I wrote this, and sighed despairingly as it reached 4k and we hadn't even left fest. There's a lot about baby cassian and his relationship with his family in this chapter, but it's entirely cassian-centric and from the next chapter on there'll be a lot more focus on the rebellion and certain droids we know and love. I was meaning to write a mirror fic for jyn, and I almost certainly will, but this one was easier because it relies less on eu-inspired canon, which i've completely forgot all about, and more on the rebellion and movie canon. so it's just cassian for now. 
> 
> btw, the names of cassian's family are all taken from narnia somewhere because cassian ==> caspian ==> good naming theme. fic title is taken from dark necessities by the red hot chili peppers, chapter title from heroes by mika

_ i. the kids in their hundreds tomorrow  _ _   
_ _ will march through the door _ _   
_ __ they’ll be fighting someone else’s war

Fest is cold. Cassian’s never really thought about it beyond that; he's five years old and at an age where he doesn't really care much about his home, beyond the fact that it's just that, his home. His father sometimes takes him on walks up the mountains, pointing out all the plants and tracks Cassian’s never really been able to remember properly, and in the summer they go climbing in the enormous fir trees that never seem to lose their greenery. So really he should be able to explain the rugged beauty that lies beneath the ice, but when someone asks him what Fest is like that's the only answer he can come up with.

“It's cold,” he tells the officer at the cantina. The man’s wearing a uniform and it's very smart, so Cassian knows he's an officer because everyone says officers are smart, but what side he's on is virtually indistinguishable to a child.

The officers all laugh like he's said something very funny. Cassian doesn't understand why they're doing it, but he plays along. His mother says he has a nice laugh. Not all of the soldiers laugh the same way; Cassian would ever admit it to anyone, because his parents always told him to be brave, but they're beginning to scare him. Strictly speaking he's not supposed to be in the cantina at all, but some of the older boys decided to try and sneak in. Turned away at the door, they all slouched off with no small amount of bad grace, but Cassian wasn't among them; if there's one thing he’s learned it's that nobody notices a kid in a crowd. There was another march against the Republic today, so the bar is fit to burst with angry Festians and it was easy enough to slip between their legs, until the officer noticed him and called him over. Cassian hasn't seen his father, which is strange because he knows that if there was a protest his father has to have been there, but he doesn't worry about it. Probably his dad’s just off at a different cantina, even though this one’s his regular.

“I have to go,” Cassian blurts out, because some of the soldiers are starting to leer at him and he wishes he was home. He doesn't wait for their reply before turning and trying to weave out of the bar the same way he came in. The stench is unbearable and as he’s pressed up against piles of warm bodies filled up with alcohol, he thinks he might have made a mistake.

“Hey, you.”

Cassian keeps walking. Talking to strangers is one of his mother’s biggest rules, and he's already broken it once today.

“I'm talking to you.”

Somehow, Cassian knows it's him the voice wants, so he turns around. Seated in one of the booths, one that's remarkably empty given the throng, is a man. By a child’s reckoning he's old, but in reality he must be about twenty-five. He's trying to look friendly, face twisted into something that could be a smile; Cassian just feels scared.

“You're a quiet enough kid, aren't you?” the man asks. “It's ok, you don't have to answer that. Do you know where the spaceport is?”

Cassian nods slowly. The man’s smile grows more genuine, but it's not reassuring. “Good,” he says. “I need you to take something there for me. Give it to the Bothan at Dock 5 and I'll give you a credit for your trouble.”

“Okay,” says Cassian, for want of something more interesting, and holds out his hand for the credit. The coin is heavy in his hand, and comes accompanied by a small data chip. Cassian looks at it warily, but the man nods at him in an encouraging sort of way before returning to his drink.

Once outside the bar, Cassian breaks into a run - he's not very strong yet, but his mother always says he's faster than anyone - and reaches the spaceport faster than any adult could. The Bothan takes the credit and thanks him, and Cassian feels good. Like he's done something. His father's always talking about how someone should do something for a change. He wants to tell his parents all about what he's done, but he also has to sneak in because he's out when he shouldn't be. Maybe he'll tell them tomorrow.

The sound of fighting before he's even halfway up the path almost makes him want to stay outside in the cold. It's been dark for a while, but the late-night chill is starting to creep up on him and Cassian has to clench his jaw to stay silent. Teeth chattering all the same, he inches his way through the back door and into his bedroom; his parents don't notice a thing over the sound of their arguing.

It's been a hard winter. That's what they say whenever they catch him or Harpa or Fledge or Jadis looking too upset about it, like it makes it any better that their parents hate each other now. Cassian thinks that's a bit of a stupid thing to say, because surely all winters are hard, and you should still be nice to people. But the Separatists and the Republic are all doing things they shouldn't and it's making mum and dad angry.

Cassian says hello to Fledge and hangs his coat up on the door, putting a finger to his lips. Fledge rolls his eyes, and frowns when Cassian gets the glass from under his bed, but doesn't say anything. Their room is tiny, but they don't have to share with the girls and mum and dad have their own rooms so as a family they're much better off than some other people in Fest. Still gets annoying when Fledge puts his grubby feet on Cassian’s bed.

“Whatcha out late for, Cass?” says Fledge.

“None of your business,” Cassian says back.

Cassian places the open end of the cup to the floor and leans down. Through an accident involving dangerous amounts of broken glass, he discovered last year that it's an easy way to listen to his parents’ conversations. When she found out Jadis said no four-year-old should have such a talent for spying already, but she didn't tell their parents either, and Fledge is annoying but he isn't a snitch, so Cassian thinks he's safe.

“-if you would just let go of your _ridiculous_ principles for once we'd be out of here already!”

“ _My_ principles? Shasta, you support an outdated, bureaucratic system that's growing worryingly militaristic!”

“Better than an oppressive regime which enslaves sentients!”

“You have no proof of that.” Cassian’s father’s voice is low and dangerous. He wants to stop listening but can't tear himself away from the glass because maybe if he understands why they're arguing so much he can do something about it.

“Look around you, Tirian! That's all the proof you need.”

“Proof for what? That we should leave? Think of the kids-”

At that, Cassian pulls up and stops listening. Whenever they bring him and his siblings up it just serves to make him feel inexplicably guilty, like all of this is somehow his fault.

“C’mon Cass,” says Fledge. “Get into bed. It'll be okay in the morning.”

Cassian used to believe everything his big brother said, but now he's not so sure. If everything will be okay in the morning, why wasn't it today after last night? What about all the other mornings it's been so far from okay he's had to stop himself crying?

The bed is warm; someone, probably his mother, put a heating pad in there. Cassian smiles and tucks his knees up to his chest, but the smile fades when he hears a bang from downstairs that can only be his mother slapping the table. Beside him Fledge jumps, and even cocooned in his covers Cassian starts to feel very cold. Big brothers aren't supposed to be scared of anything.

Later, when everyone is supposed to be fast asleep, their mother arrives to tuck them in. There are tear tracks on her face, where usually her eyes are crinkled at the edges with laughter, and her smile is wobbly, and she doesn’t sing to them like usual. Instead she spends a long time sitting at the end of their bed, just looking at them and stroking their hair. When she leaves, Cassian’s pillow is wet from where her tears fell.

It's a long time after that until he can get to sleep.

\----

Spring brings no end to the arguments. Cassian and his siblings have taken to sneaking around the house to avoid their parents, as well as the large groups of friends his father has a tendency to bring home with him these days. They while away long hours poring over various maps and documents, while Cassian’s mother stalks around them, lips pressed into a thin line.

Jadis smiles reassuringly whenever she sees Cassian or Harpa looking upset, but Fledge spends most of his time out with friends. They're mostly older than him; he's only eleven, but comes home spouting nonsense about Separatists and Republic militias and things Cassian doesn't understand. Jadis, as the eldest, tries to talk to him about it, about how he should stay safe, and when that doesn't work she goes straight to his friends.

Cassian has seen Jadis when she's angry, and he thinks it's strange that Fledge’s friends aren't terrified of her by now, but she only comes home trying to hide her tears. He tries to cheer her up by hugging her or showing her some interesting pine cones he found earlier, but her smiles are thin and grey and eventually he gives up.

Harpa punches a wall, and has to bandage her bleeding knuckles by herself. Their mother seems to be out so much these days.

It's been so long since she sang to them.

Cassian tries to copy her. Nothing's the same in their house anymore. He spends more and more time in the mountains, trying to pretend that his father’s there too and he isn't so achingly, unbearably alone.

\---

Things improve in summer. Fest is still cold, but it's always cold, and Cassian only needs a fleece to go outside now. His parents haven't fought in days; they smiled at each other yesterday and at breakfast the atmosphere was as calm as it's been for a long time.

Cassian tries his best to savour it. He knows it won't last.

“Hey, Cass,” his father says. “Want to go up to the mountains today?”

So follows one of the best days Cassian’s had for a while. They climb until their legs ache and their lungs burn with cold mountain air; Cassian scrambles up a tree to get a look at what's up over a nearby ridge; he finds a thicket of crystal ferns and takes one home for each of his siblings and his mother. It's almost dark when they get back, tired and aching but happy.

“I love you, Cass. You know that, right?”

Cassian doesn't really know what to say, so he squeezes his dad’s hand and smiles.

They don't see each other for the whole week after that, and then one day one of his dad’s friends knocks on the door and asks to speak to their mother. He's a pilot, and usually wears his goggles on the top of his head even if he isn't flying, but today he's taken them off. Tufts of dark hair stick up oddly from his head, slicked back with oil and grease, but he tries to pat them down in between moments of agitated fiddling with his goggles.

Cassian knows something is wrong. Up in his room he debates whether or not to use the glass to eavesdrop, but the sick feeling in his stomach tells him not to.

The man stays for only a short time, but it's much longer before their mother leaves the kitchen. None of them enter, not even Jadis, and when she tells them their father is dead they don't really say anything at all.

Cassian lies on his bed and wonders why he isn't crying. Fledge ran out a while ago, unimpeded by either Jadis or their mother, probably to go find his friends. In the other room Cassian can hear his mother and Jadis sobbing; outside Harpa punches the fence, angry tears streaming down her face.

Cassian’s brain nags at him, telling him he should do something. Help the Separatists, even though fighting for them only got his father killed, or comfort his mother. His father always said somebody should do something.

Instead he lies on his bed and tries to cry. His belly is a gnawing mass of hunger, but it's a dull, distant hurt, one easy to push away in favour of the oppressive greyness that's threatening to overtake him. The only thing he can feel right now is the grim, pulsing red of anger, which he boxes up to keep for later. All that's left is a strange buzzing in his ears and the smell of pine cones and crystal ferns.

Sometime in the evening, his mother leaves the house and doesn't return until dawn.

\---

Their mother’s face is tired and worn, so different to the woman who used to smile and sing them lullabies.

“Kids,” she says in an urgent, grim voice. “I need you to listen to me, okay? Whatever you do, remember this.”

“Okay,” says Jadis, echoed by Harpa and Fledge and Cassian. Their mother sighs. It looks like she's steeling herself to say something terrible.

“If I say run, you go, all right? To the hut in the woods. You know it? They'll be people there you can trust, who'll keep you safe.”

Harpa opens her mouth to say something, but their mothers cuts her off, “Just do it! Say you'll do it. I don't want you to be scared, but it's important, okay?”

They nod. None of them really trusts themselves to speak.

“Good,” their mother whispers, reaching out to touch each of their cheeks in turn. “That's good. I love you.”

\---

Cassian’s sixth birthday comes and goes with little to mark it except some spare parts Jadis found in town. He's trying to build a robot, but he isn't very good yet and there's no way he'll ever be able to find a way to power it and playing is too expensive.

Still, the parts are enough to give it eyes and fix up the insides so that if he could find a power pack, it would work. He smiled at Jadis and says thank you and means it.

Later, when they're all supposed to be asleep, his mother returns and spends long hours crying over Cassian’s bed.

\---

Two days later, they come for her.

It's Jadis who answers the insistent banging at the door, kind, pure, perfect Jadis who used to brush Cassian’s hair and helped him figure out how to use the ‘fresher for the first time. The troopers who stand behind it are Seps, probably, bristling with blasters he instinctively knows aren't set to stun.

“We’re looking for Shasta Andor,” their leader barks. “Where is she?”

“She's out,” says Jadis. Her lips are set into that thin line she inherited from their mother. “But I can give her a message.”

“We know she's here. Move aside.”

Jadis doesn't budge. The troopers raise their blasters as one, a sinuous movement that sends shivers down Cassian’s spine.

“Move aside, girl!”

“This is private property,” Jadis insists, and she's only thirteen but so brave and Cassian knows that she is who he wants to be like when she's older. “If you would like to see Shasta Andor you can-”

“I said, move aside!” the leader roars and then all hell breaks loose. Some of them charge, knock Jadis to the side, and then they swarm around the kitchen like ants. Cassian, hidden behind the door, goes to run, but the small, shocked noise Jadis makes when the blaster bolt hits her is enough to stop him in his tracks.

To Cassian, she hangs in the air for a minute, looking at her chest in confusion. Her eyebrows knit together and then her eyes clear momentarily and even if her mouth is slack he knows what she's whispering.

_“Run.”_

Pivoting as fast as he can Cassian turns to go, but in the split second it takes for him to move Fledge is there, fists raised and face set.

“Get out of my house,” he snarls, lashing out at the nearest body.

The troopers laugh as they mow him down.

Cassian freezes, staring at Fledge and Jadis lying motionless on the floor. His big sister and brother, who were supposed to be there for him forever because they promised and Fledge always helped him with the robot and Jadis made sure they had enough for lunch when dad died and…

This time Cassian thinks he really might cry.

“There are others,” he hears one of the troopers say. “A boy and girl, as well as the mother. Find them. Kill them all.”

With that, Cassian remembers Harpa. He knows his mother will be okay, because she's a grown-up - even though his childhood innocence is already beginning to shatter; his father wasn't okay and he was strong and brave and smart but now he's dead - but Harpa isn't and she might need help.

He tears through the house trying to find her, searching through every room there is, but all he sees are Fledge’s old holovids and Jadis’s books. Tears prick his eyes, making him stumble as he tries to navigate his way through blurry vision and the pang in his chest.

“Cass!” someone hisses. It's his mother; she doesn't look scared, just angry, the angriest he's ever seen her. “They didn't hurt you, did they?”

“No,” he whispers. “But Jadis-”

“I heard,” she says, teeth clenched furiously. “I want you to listen to me now, Cassian. I need you to run, run as fast as you can to the hut and never look back. I need-” Cassian listens with wide eyes as she swallows thickly. “I need you to stay safe. And remember us. Remember that we are your family and we love you. _I_ love you.”

There's a bang from the stairs behind them, voices raised in angry shouts. Cassian tries not to sniffle as his mother pulls him into a hug, because he knows what's about to happen, he's seen Fledge and Jadis fall, blood blossoming in their chests, faces desperately, terribly empty. That's what's going to happen to his mother, Cassian _knows,_ and he knows should save her, should find Harpa and do something, but the troopers are coming and he's only six and he doesn't know what to do…

“Trust in the Force, Cassian.”

And then everything is happening too fast; his mother's pushing him out of the back window, which would ordinarily be a dizzyingly high jump but today the ground hits him and he rolls and runs, as fast as he can into the woods. Branches whip his face and he almost stumbles over several stray roots, but he doesn't stop until he's sure the troopers can't have found him.

The hut is only a little way over, so Cassian walks the rest of the way. He's cold from head to toe, tired and hungry and all he wants to do his sleep.

The people waiting there are kind, but distant. They soothe him with soft voices and sweet words giving him food and a warm coat. One of them is the Bothan he gave the data chip to ages ago; she envelops in a hug and pats his head in what he supposes is meant to be a comforting way.

When he doesn’t say anything, they seem to understand. No one pushes him to talk, anyway. Cassian’s always been a quiet child, at least according to his - according to people he knows. Knew. Now he can’t think of anything to say that’s worth summoning the energy it requires. The people in the hut seem to get it, though. His mother sent him to them, which means probably they worked together - Cassian isn’t too stupid to see that the places his mother’s been going to had something to do with the Republic, or whoever fights the Seps now - so maybe they’ve lost people too. They know how it feels.

Eventually, however, they turn him out, with no sign of Harpa and no one willing to wait for her. Apparently they’re not organised enough to look after a kid, yet, and so they send him away with enough food to last a week and a good coat and pair of boots.

It’s not enough.

Fest is cold, as Cassian will happily tell you, and the next year of his life is one that he mostly remembers for being freezing. Fest is full of orphans and street urchins by now, so it isn’t too hard to find a group to slot into. They let him stay around in return for food and titbits of news; Cassian’s always been good at spying.

Not good enough, apparently. There’s still no sign of Harpa, even though he can’t think where in the universe she’s gone, but there’s more to occupy his mind nowadays. Where else could she be except dead, anyway? No point thinking about it now, not when there’s people who’ll pay for any news of what the Imps are up to.

Cassian’s in a cantina, a seedy one where you can actually stick to the carpet if you’re not careful. It’s slight deja vu, to be honest, because he’s listening in on a group of Imp officers bragging about how they shot down some rebel ships in the Corellian sector. There’s a man sitting alone in a booth, nursing a shot of something vile-looking, and staring right at Cassian…

It’s the man from before. The one who told him to give the data chip to the Bothan who hugged him when his mother died. When his mother was _murdered_. The man’s beckoning him over; Cassian finds his feet moving almost of their own accord as they carry him over the grimy floor.

“You’re the kid who knows how to take a message,” the man says. He has long, cultured vowels, almost Imperial. Cassian nods. The man appraises him, takes in the coat with the too-short sleeves, the way Cassian’s lips are always slightly blue these days, how his clothes hang off his skinny frame. “How’s Fest? Still cold?”

Cassian isn’t in the mood for joking. “How did you notice me?”

“I know how to look for things that are out of place. Seems like you do too, even if you’re young.” The man looks Cassian up and down once more, then grins. Just like last time, it isn’t comforting. “How’d you like to come work with me? How does rebellion taste to you?”

Cassian thinks about it. In his mind’s eye he sees Jadis and Fledge, bleeding out in their kitchen, hears his mother - _trust in the Force, Cassian -_ sees his father yelling angrily, passionately, about how someone should up and do something. They all fade away into the mountains and Cassian sees their killers; black and khaki uniforms, arrogant officers laughing about death, troopers in the doorway of his home.

He nods once, firmly. The man stands up and claps him on the shoulder, smiling - this time, maybe, Cassian thinks it could be genuine; definitely, this is first time he hears him say anything and sound remotely pleased about it.

“Welcome to the Rebellion, kid.”


	2. warriors

_ ii. i _ _ n youth you'd lay _ _   
_ _ awake at night and scheme _ _   
_ _ of all the things that you would change _ _   
_ __ but it was just a dream

The Rebellion is nothing like Cassian was expecting. He envisioned bustling hilltop forts of durasteel, with battle droids marching round it full of purpose and smart, well-uniformed officers shouting orders at troops eager to obey. 

What he gets is this: a shambling, prefabricated base on a pleasant, temperate world that’s nonetheless warmer than anything Cassian’s used. There are no towering battle droids or fabled droidekas, but occasionally an astromech will roll serenely down a hallway and bump into a wall. It appears to be a regular occurrence. The people there are a ragtag group, a bunch of ex-military men and ex-smugglers and ex-criminals who spend most of their time gambling for scraps from the mess or patching up stolen fighters. 

It is not at all how Cassian hoped it would be. Of course he romanticised it, made it into some kind of story - because stories are always so much easier to stomach than reality - with princesses in white gowns and loveable rogues and pilots who always save the day, but the truth is that he’s wandered into some kind of guerilla war. 

The Alliance to Restore the Republic is no place for a child. 

He’s not the only one, of course. There are a couple of other urchins kicking around the base, helping out where they can and generally getting under everyone’s feet. The men and women don’t really seem to mind; it’s early days yet and no one really expects anything much to happen except the top brass and a few diehard believers. 

Turns out the man who brought Cassian here is one of those. His name is Captain Draven, and he seems to think Cassian has promise. For the first couple of weeks they spend some time talking about the virtues of the Old Republic and how much the Imps suck. Not in so many words; Draven’s a strangely cold, formal man, who never really give the impression that he actually  _ likes  _ Cassian. If he was old enough to give it these words, Cassian would have said he felt like a tool to be used, albeit a useful one, under Draven’s gaze, but at the time it just makes him feel uncomfortable.

Eventually he’s left alone - Draven appears to remember that he’s only seven, after all - and is given practically free run of the base. Like he noticed when they first arrived, it’s an absolute shambles, but there’s a strange sort of order to it. The barracks are all in the same place, and there’s a clear route from there to the mess hall, which is that distance again from the briefing room. That’s an old, dusty room that’s rarely used; most action these days is in the form of dog-fights or recon or infiltration. Some soldiers go out recruiting, sending a steady trickle of those crazy or principled or desperate enough to join the rebellion.

Despite the weirdness of it all, Cassian thinks he quite likes it here. There’s a purpose to it, instead of the drifting of the previous year - terrible for an adult with an understanding of what’s happening to them, but worse still for a child, with no room to relax except to wonder if he’s going to be able to find food. 

Here, Cassian can let himself go a little bit. He’s a bit too serious for the other kids, who like to run around and take stupid risks - he finds himself lecturing them as Jadis would have more times than he can count - so he doesn’t exactly make friends, but it’s not too bad. It’s easy enough to make himself useful patching up robots they bring in; there’s even power packs, so he can breathe life into an old medical droid. He learns Binary from a foul-mouthed Artoo unit who rolls through the base like he owns the place, and laughs at its companion’s fussing. 

The rebellion isn’t much, but it’s as close as Cassian will have to a home for a long time. 

\---

Patching up droids can’t last, and soon Cassian finds himself entrusted with more serious obligations. Some of the adults still don’t entirely trust him, pointing to his father’s Separatist sympathies, but the rest of them point out that if a child has been with the Rebellion for four years, he’s hardly going to betray them. 

Soon they have him running messages up and down the base - privately he thinks they could do that themselves, but it puts him nearer the action, a welcome change from the otherwise monotonous life on Dantooine. It’s in one of the meetings, a less important one than usual but still better than sabbac or more child-friendly variants, that Cassian is, for want of a better word  _ noticed.  _

They’re talking about codes and spying and stuff, and privately he thinks it’s very interesting but has never been brave enough to ask if he can know about any of it. He’s eleven now, and should probably be braver, but according to the senator in the flowy white gowns, that’s not old enough at all to know about ciphers. 

Except Cassian loves ciphers; they’re just patterns, and between the codes and droids, Cassian’s always loved patterns. 

“It’s hardly a substitution cipher!” says Bail Organa incredulously. At least, Cassian thinks that’s Bail Organa. Probably. “That’s far too simple for something so important.”

“Um, I think it is,” Cassian whispers before he can stop himself. His heart stops when every head in the room swivels to look at him. “Uh, it’s just...I don’t think everyone in the Rebellion is very good at ciphers yet and if you rotate the letters it works.”

Draven slams his holocron down on the table, swearing under his breath. “Goddamn  _ believers,  _ at least the smugglers know how to encrypt a message about Imperial weapon transfers!”

At that, the conversation starts up again. It’s relatively calm, peppered with bursts of intense debate which have most members of the council jumping out of their skin. Not Cassian. He weathers the storm and takes in everything they’re saying with interest - despite his outburst, apparently he’s still not important enough to warrant much discussion. 

That is, until there’s a lull in their arguing and Organa fixes him with a look and asks, “What’s your name?”

“Cassian Andor.”

“How long have you been here?”

“Four years, sir,” Draven supplies. Cassian’s picked up enough to know that he’s only a captain, but promising and important enough that they let him sit in on council meetings whenever his boss is out on a mission. “Picked him up on Fest.”

Organa nods. “Well done, Andor. You may leave.”

Cassian nods nervously and scurries out of the room. Draven’s gaze never leaves his back until the door slides shut behind him. 

\---

Once the sun slides below Dantooine’s horizon, Cassian heads back to his room. He shares it with three other boys he’s never bothered to get to know. They’re all friends, but his icy glares soon stopped them from approaching  _ him  _ with any sort of friendly overtures. Cassian doesn’t have the time or the personality for friends anymore; without his family to smooth them down, he’s all sharp edges and cold, rigorously self-controlled heart.

Sometimes he wonders what it would be like to have them there with him - to have anyone he could turn to. That’s impossible, so instead Cassian contents himself with imagining the feeling of shooting a Stormtrooper through the heart, and tries to avoid his nightmares.

It’s a futile thought, because that night, he has the dream again. He’s in the mountains, at first, with his father. They play hide and seek in the crystal ferns and collect pinecones to bring home to his mother as a present. It’s one of the cool, crisp sort of days that stand out in a Festian’s memory for being not-too-cold and not-too-hot, with still air and bright sunlight. Cassian is happy here, in his dream-mountains, where there’s no danger or troopers and-

And then they arrive, dressed all in smooth, ominous black and bristling with guns. Cassian’s father falls first, crumpling into a forlorn heap, blood staining the snow. It didn’t happen like this, of course, Cassian knows, but his brain doesn’t care. 

He sees his family fall one by one in front of him, and no matter how much he screams he can never save them. Harpa’s the only one missing, but there’s a sharp silhouette in the landscape where she should be, and it never goes away.

Cassian’s family falls, and he screams, and they fall again. 

He wakes up yelling, tangled in bedsheets and listening to the angry mutters of his roommates telling him to shut up. Slowly, Cassian makes his way outside, letting Dantooine’s soft breeze warm him up. Cold doesn’t bother him as much as the other kids on the base, but he’s still not used to the way everything here is so  _ green _ , instead of the sharp contrast of blacks and whites and greys so bright they hurt to look at. He can close his eyes here, where it’s different, and try to forget.

The day of Cassian’s twelfth birthday dawns, and he’s already forgotten how to sleep properly.

\---

Later the same day, Draven finds him polishing an astromech in the hangar. With nothing else to occupy them, most of the base’s ragtag orphans have taken to doing odd jobs around the base - some of the more enterprising do it for credits, the rest just to take away their boredom. 

“Andor,” Draven says. He always manages to sound slightly annoyed about something, which Cassian finds both impressive and infuriating. 

“Sir?” replies Cassian. 

“That was good work on the cipher.”

Cassian wants to say that it wasn’t, and that someone should really teach Rebel spies a better way of encrypting information if they can’t do it digitally. Instead he goes with “Thank you.”

“I’ve been watching you for a while,” Draven continues, as though this isn’t incredibly ominous. “I would like to recruit you.”

“Haven’t I already been recruited?” 

“What, polishing droids and skulking around Dantooine? No, I have more important work for you. You’re smart, resourceful, and can think on your feet. You also know how to stay undetected. I want you to work for me in Military Intelligence.”

Cassian stares at him. It’s not as if he hasn’t entertained dreams about doing more, or even just getting off Dantooine and away from droids. But the latter sort of fantasy are soon chased away by the burning zeal of a child who watched their family slaughtered in front of them, had their life torn apart by the Empire. After that, Cassian thinks, there’s no walking away from a fight like this. He’s always been to scared to actually  _ ask  _ if he can be involved - most kids who do are sent away with a quiet word of rejection or a lecture on child endangerment, depending on who they ask - but if Draven is actually  _ offering… _

“Really?” Cassian blurts out. He can’t help the excitement that colours his reaction, simultaneously terrified that he’s acting too immature and Draven will change his mind. 

“Yes. Report to me at 12:00 hours, trooper.”

“Yes, sir!” he has too much self-control to salute, even if he knew how, but Cassian can’t help the smile that spreads over his face. 

\---

Draven gives him his first mission a week later. It’s off-planet, but nothing big, just going to some backwater planet in the Tion Cluster and meeting with a defector who’s offering to sell them information. Cassian won’t be doing the actual transaction, obviously, but he’ll watch and learn from Draven. 

No one says anything on the trip over, or the trip back, but the defector turns out to be serious. Draven offers to bring him back to Dantooine with them, along with a post in the Rebel Army. 

“Seriously?” the pilot scoffs. “You want me to fight for you guys? No offence, but I didn’t do this for ideals or anything. The Imperial Army’s a crapshoot, and I’m never going back, but at least they’re not made up of criminals and kids and suicidal idiots.”

Cassian doesn’t say anything, but internally he’s fuming. So maybe  _ he’s  _ a kid, but there’s others in the army who aren’t, and they’re hardly  _ idiots.  _ And this guy’s a defector and an Imp; he’s hardly one to talk. Draven merely shrugs, hands over the credits, and tells the man to contact them if he ever changes his mind.

The whole way back to the ship Cassian’s seething with rage. He thinks he’s been doing a pretty good job of hiding it, or so he thinks, but before boarding Draven looks down at him with something Cassian thinks is scorn. 

“Don’t think we’re all noble heroes who’ll save the galaxy with unstained morals,” he snaps. “The defector was right. Most of us are criminals, or kids, or idiots, and you won’t get out of this with clean hands. You’re in military intel now, kid, and you’re going to have to fix that moral compass if you ever want to help rid us of the Empire.”

Cassian doesn’t say anything once Draven finishes, storming off to the end of the ship and trying to convince himself that he isn’t crying, and that the defector wasn’t right. 

\---

The missions get easier after that. Cassian takes Draven’s advice and bucks up, hardening his heart and sharpening his edges. He looks smugglers and slave-traders in the eye and takes their information and mocking laughter at an idiot kid working for the idiot rebels. He hops from planet to planet, never staying long enough to make friends, getting out as soon as he can, and slowly he  _ learns.  _

Learns that the Rebellion isn’t what he thought it was - maybe it’s run by people with fundamentally good intentions, but that can’t be said for the rag-tag group that makes up the best part of its ranks. They muddle along, but half of them are only there for the shit the mess cooks up, and the rest might have believed once, but now they’re just empty husks, blindly giving themselves to a cause because it’s the only thing they have left. 

Cassian promises himself he’ll never become like that. Instead, he pours himself into his job, taking mission after mission as he grows taller and leaner and emptier. There’s still something in him, though, the remnant of the little boy whose sister said he was way too young to be that good of a spy, who ran through freezing waterfalls on a dare from his brother, who climbed higher than he thought was possible just to spend time with his father. 

It’s hard to pinpoint the moment where that boy dies, but Cassian thinks it was probably when he killed his first person. 

A Stormtrooper, collapsing, red blossoming at her neck, like Cassian always dreamed of. But this time it’s different, because when the trooper dies she sounds just like any other human, and the rest of her platoon look on with shock as she stumbles and falls, and Cassian has just cemented himself as a murderer and tied his soul to the Rebellion. 

That’s probably when the little boy he used to be finally dies. 

\---

Cassian spends his sixteenth birthday yelling at a droid. 

“Your accent gets thicker when you are mad,” K-2SO says. “Did you know that?”

“What? Why - I’m trying to  _ reprogram you,  _ shut  _ up _ !”

“Yes, so you have said. I still don’t understand why; the odds of you escaping once I am in a position to cooperate only increase by twelve percent, and the likelihood of your death only falls to about seventy.”

Cassian slumps back against the durasteel wall behind him, running a hand through his oil-stained hair. “I really didn’t need to know that,” he says. “It’ll be fine, now  _ shut up. _ ”

“Okay,” says K-2SO. A minute he adds, quite cheerfully, “However, the patrols in this area of the ship are undertaken by droids, so if you were to reroute them away from the nearest exit, escape is a likely option.”

Cassian contemplates throwing the nearest wrench at his new friend. “And you couldn’t have mentioned this earlier?”

“I only now agreed to consider you as more entertaining than an insect.”

“That’s very charming. Will you hurry up and reroute the patrols, then?”

“Certainly.” K-2 manages to say this with an absolutely astounding amount of grace. 

It’s only once they’ve managed to limp out of the base - Cassian, at least, is limping. K-2 is grumbling about how he’s lowering their odds of survival - that Cassian realises he’s already given the stupid droid a nickname.

\---

At eighteen, he’s promoted to Sergeant, though in the world of military intelligence and solitary recruitment missions, that’s hardly a very meaningful title. Neither is Captain, which he gets three years later despite his age, but as Mon Mothma puts it, he’s “been with us a long time, Captain Andor.”

Cassian’s not quite sure how to feel about that, if he’s honest.

\---

“Cassian, I really don’t think this is a good idea.”

“K-2, what part of keep your mouth shut did you not understand?”

“The part where I don’t have a mouth.”

“Very smart, K. You’re a real genius.”

“I know.”

Somewhere along the line, years before, Cassian thinks he and K-2 became friends. He’s spent a long amount of time proofing himself against caring about more than the moment and the mission at hand, a necessary precaution in the middle of a war, but all that falls apart in the face of the most annoying droid he’s ever met. 

It’s not that he’s incapable of human emotion, as he’s heard remarked around the base. It’s just that for someone who generally works alone, it’s not exactly a good idea to go around caring. Which is why it is so insufferable that K-2, after all these years, still manages to press every single one of Cassian’s buttons, and then make him feel bad for being upset. 

“Wait on the ship,” Cassian snaps, ignoring the customary groan. The Ring of Kafrene is crawling with Imperials, and he can’t risk such an important bit of information about Jedha for the sake of K-2’s feelings. Much as he’d like to, which is really the most annoying part. 

Cassian weaves through the crowds with no small amount of bad humour. Everywhere in the galaxy is full of tension these days, and Kafrene is no exception. No wonder Tivik was leery about meeting here. 

Still, needs must, and at the moment the needs are very great indeed. Cassian slips into back-alleys, doing his best to avoid Stormtroopers and make it look like he isn’t. It works, for the most part, but he feels little relief upon seeing Tivik and the frantic look on his face. 

Their conversation is a brief, harried one, made worse by Cassian’s impatience and the obvious shock Tivik’s feeling from his broken arm. When they’re rushed at by a trooper the shock gives way to more anxiety than Cassian can deal with, so he puts a bolt in Tivik’s heart. It’s nothing special; he dies as they all do, soft and with much less drama than holovids would have you believe. 

Cassian quells the guilt. He knows pilots who keep track of their kill counts, for bragging or to remember he has no idea, but they’re mostly involved in aerial dog-fights. There, you can’t see the person’s face as they die, wondering what they did to make you betray them, and besides, their counts pale in comparison to Cassian’s.

Tivik had a family; a husband and two kids. Sometimes, Cassian wonders what a family would be like. Most of the time, he tries to stop himself from caring. 


End file.
